Guild Wars 2

Before I’m accused of it, I’m not complaining about this, I just want to talk about it.

I was discussing Confusion with some friends earlier today and we all had something to say. Two people we’re saying it was fine, another said it scaled far too much with condition damage for something that stacks. Someone put in that it was the only condition that hits more than once per second. Somebody brought up the oddity that rolling/dodging is considered a “skill”. Someone mentioned that it’s likely the single best damage condition in the game. And somebody brought up the point that it’s a mechanic that in a high-speed, twitch-based game it’s a skill that says “forget that, stop or die” whenever a swirl shows up on your condition bar.

So I’m wondering what the forum thinks of it.

Confusion is probably the only condition beside Immobilize that I ever bother removing.
It’s not just trivial stuff you can outheal, you must remove it before doing actions and thus causing too much damage.

Personally, I wish it was stronger in PvE; however, by the sounds of it, it seems too powerful in PvP.

I found that in PvE it is a nice damage add but doesn’t do what bleeding and burning can do. You need traits and condition damage to really use it since it will only hit most foes once. I think in PvP it would be devastating because we spam attacks. It hurts when used on players in PvE because it can be hard to get your character to stop attacking. I usually only melee when I can against confusers since I can always back away and wait for confusion to end.

in pvp, its more of a shutdown since better players will know to not do anything while it’s up. others will just take damage from it.

for me it’s a “stop doing anything” indicator. Much in the same way many mesmers were in GW1, and that’s good. I like being scared of a class and using my wits to get myself out of it.

also it’s fun to ignore the condition and see how much more damage I can do before I die. sometimes I’m still alive by the end of it, and it’s thrilling.

It’s a well rounded condition IMO. It stacks nicely, mobs attack fast enough for it to hurt, and it scales well. Bleeding does more constant damage and burning is higher, but confusion punishes behavior, not presence. Only retaliation also does this. It’s more dynamic and really fits in well with the themes of the game.

Confusion is best described as the replacement for hexes such as Empathy or Backfire from GW1 . It puts you in a position where you have to decide weather it better to back off perhaps taking a few hits in the process or to take the damage from Confusion by attacking and hoping you can heal through it .

Well, outside of wvw, where it does double damage, it is generally considered pretty lacking.
In pve it is usually inferior to other conditions due to the low rate at which mobs their skills, especially if you kite them. It doesn’t see any competitive play that I know of in spvp, so I’d hardly call it op. One major downside of it is though, that conscious players can avoid lots of it, they can just wait for it to fall off naturally if it’s short, they can wait until their condition removal comes off cd, or most notably, they can simply run away from you.

It is, however, very satisfying to see noobs destroy themselves while hitting your clones and laughing about it.

The thing about confusion is it puts you in a state where you are unable to do anything if you don’t have a cleanse up. So a mesmer can stack confusion on you while a thief beats down on you and you can’t do anything.

GoZero.9708:

Before I’m accused of it, I’m not complaining about this, I just want to talk about it.

I was discussing Confusion with some friends earlier today and we all had something to say. Two people we’re saying it was fine, another said it scaled far too much with condition damage for something that stacks. Someone put in that it was the only condition that hits more than once per second. Somebody brought up the oddity that rolling/dodging is considered a “skill”. Someone mentioned that it’s likely the single best damage condition in the game. And somebody brought up the point that it’s a mechanic that in a high-speed, twitch-based game it’s a skill that says “forget that, stop or die” whenever a swirl shows up on your condition bar.

So I’m wondering what the forum thinks of it.

Its fine in PvP but needs a boost in PvE, I always respec to burst when doing PvE on my mesmer.

Just on your point about dodging, dodging by itself is not a skill, confusion hits a player when they have a skill attached to dodging eg. eles or guardians.

Bunzy.8674:

The thing about confusion is it puts you in a state where you are unable to do anything if you don’t have a cleanse up. So a mesmer can stack confusion on you while a thief beats down on you and you can’t do anything.

2 vs. 1 will most likely end up with the 1 on the floor anyways. I’m not saying people can’t 2v1 or 3v1 and still come out ahead of everyone; I’m saying the odds are stacked much higher to begin with in a 2 vs. 1.

Jackums.3496:

Glamour builds are very easy to counter. They’re more suited for group fights, anyway, in which case you’ll generally have access to a lot more condition removal.

The confusion build I run is a glamour build and its only useful in zergs.

Its main issue is it has very little counters, not all classes can successfully clean conditions equally so its overpowered for some..

e.g Rangers etc, 10 sec signet is too long i can have 12 to 15 stacks on me in under 10 sec easy no chance of surviving as your fire effect is already done before you can stop attacking..you cannot move, heal, dodge, but you do die..

its the only condition that also scales off of player skill.

the better you are at the game, the more damage potential it has, and the more you need to start playing bad to make it not hurt.

confusion is kinda strange since in pve and spvp.. it’s fairly easy to play around it, in wvw though.. the damage on players can be very high, 4/5 stacks from a condition built prof.. it will cut you deep .. more then that and you are in serious trouble :P

No idea why they balance it this way tbh.. wvw should follow the same ruleset as spvp imo.

Bunzy.8674:

The thing about confusion is it puts you in a state where you are unable to do anything if you don’t have a cleanse up. So a mesmer can stack confusion on you while a thief beats down on you and you can’t do anything.

It shuts down players. Mesmers should be able to do that, it was a huge part of their gameplay in the first game. Imo working as intended really.

It shuts down players is a way that allow them to still be defensive – its not a stunlock.

Working as intended, may need balance like most other things in GW2.

Overpowered and boring in mass pvps.

Every fight starts with veil and confusion stacks and one side running over the other.

Aridia.3042:

Overpowered and boring in mass pvps.

Every fight starts with veil and confusion stacks and one side running over the other.

There is a simple solution to that tactic at a group level, getting enough people to follow it is difficult…

As encouragement I’ll see if you can work it out – its the opposite of ignoring your situation and running forward en masse muppet formation.

thisolderhead.5127:

Aridia.3042:

Overpowered and boring in mass pvps.

Every fight starts with veil and confusion stacks and one side running over the other.

There is a simple solution to that tactic at a group level, getting enough people to follow it is difficult…

As encouragement I’ll see if you can work it out – its the opposite of ignoring your situation and running forward en masse muppet formation.

Solution is to do it yourself also, just like in all of those G v G videos. Which makes it doubly boring.

In spvp, confusion is decent but not amazing, making you decide if doing something is worth taking a decent chunk of damage. In wvw, confusion is the most overpowered ability in the game. For those who don’t know, confusion in wvw does 2x the damage it does in spvp, not including gear/food differences.

In spvp, you choose between doing nothing or doing something and being punished for it. In wvw, you choose between doing nothing or killing yourself almost instantly. The wvw damage severely needs to be lowered down to spvp levels, but it won’t be because anet insists on wvw using pve balance, and anet prioritizes pve over wvw, and they want confusion to be useful in pve.

Aridia.3042:

thisolderhead.5127:

Aridia.3042:

Overpowered and boring in mass pvps.

Every fight starts with veil and confusion stacks and one side running over the other.

There is a simple solution to that tactic at a group level, getting enough people to follow it is difficult…

As encouragement I’ll see if you can work it out – its the opposite of ignoring your situation and running forward en masse muppet formation.

Solution is to do it yourself also, just like in all of those G v G videos. Which makes it doubly boring.

Sure – that is the ONLY solution.

thisolderhead.5127:

Aridia.3042:

thisolderhead.5127:

Aridia.3042:

Overpowered and boring in mass pvps.

Every fight starts with veil and confusion stacks and one side running over the other.

There is a simple solution to that tactic at a group level, getting enough people to follow it is difficult…

As encouragement I’ll see if you can work it out – its the opposite of ignoring your situation and running forward en masse muppet formation.

Solution is to do it yourself also, just like in all of those G v G videos. Which makes it doubly boring.

Sure – that is the ONLY solution.

It’s the easiest solution given the reasons that’s posted above you by Dreztina which is why every large group in WvW does it. Feel free to pretend that’s fun or good for the game though. After all we’ve got people in here that thinks leg specialist working on siege weapons is a good idea too, so I’m not surprised. Balance? What’s that?

Mmm I agree on the balance sentiment.

Hey I am the first to say that the average MMORPG’er is the worst thing for the average MMO, however I will say that defeatist “Just zerg the towers, everything else is too hard to do/coordinate” isn’t really attempting to offer a solution or encourage out of the box thinking now is it.

And yes – I do find it fun when I can predict a large proportion of a fight I’m about to have or am in… why don’t you?

dreztina.4820:

In spvp, confusion is decent but not amazing, making you decide if doing something is worth taking a decent chunk of damage. In wvw, confusion is the most overpowered ability in the game. For those who don’t know, confusion in wvw does 2x the damage it does in spvp, not including gear/food differences.

In spvp, you choose between doing nothing or doing something and being punished for it. In wvw, you choose between doing nothing or killing yourself almost instantly. The wvw damage severely needs to be lowered down to spvp levels, but it won’t be because anet insists on wvw using pve balance, and anet prioritizes pve over wvw, and they want confusion to be useful in pve.

As I understand it it was originally at sPvP levels but it was too weak for PvE. If it was lowered confusion would essentially be useless in WvW.

I am fine with confusion except with it triggering on dodge role if you have an on dodge trait (like evasive arcana, guardian heal ect.). That should be fixed, confusion is supposed to hit when you use an ability, stopping you from dodge rolling as well with certain specs feels like a bug.

Confusion is so easy to negate, you stop pushing buttons for a couple of seconds or cleanse. It is the only condition where you are responsible for how powerful it is, not your opponent.

confusion is actually one of the mopst 2 powerful conditions around in www

Its not that keeping a zerg still for 5 seconds is not powerful…..
Its not also that is acceptable tu put up confusion walls….because www is all about time.

chaos storm is actually too powerful in www stacking lot of confusion via finishers is too easy.

Most guilds already (ab)use this tactic a lot.

FInally people notice….

P.S. its not a couple of seconds ….its 5 seconds per finisher….

Confusion is perfectly fine. It actually does what they wanted it to do. Punishes players for spamming skills while under the effect of it but gives a choice to not use them and suffer no damage.

Confusion in general lasts very short unless someone has base 5s one + lots of +condi duration. Then it can get to 7,5s but that is still less than other ones.

Imo confusion is fine.

No, i don’t play mesmer

In wvw i guss it can last a long longer with food etc but then again enemies have a choice of using -condition duration food and runes too to make it last like 1-2 seconds tops.

first…a zerker build applying stacks of confusion with no condition damage is only hitting for 130 a stack…thats not a lot when it only lasts a couple seconds…now a full blown confusion mesmer SHOULD be able to take down a group of people to about half health but he wont finish any of them off…thats the nature of AoE…

second…its so easy to counter it isnt even funny…just run away people…that mesmer has to wait for his cooldowns to hit you with it again

ps…i rock a confusion spec mesmer…PvE is very slow…sPvP its a joke…WvWvW really only useful in groups…if you get hit by it its your own fault

Speaking purely from a PvE perspective and as far as having it applied to me… I despise Confusion. Its easily my most hated debuff. Its thankfully relatively rare, but when it does crop up I always get annoyed, especially on mobs that apply stacks of it over and over (veteran Nightmare Court >.>).

Being forced to do nothing to not die is not enjoyable. Its not like Retaliation where you can at least do other things besides attacking directly (heal, support, defend, ect), you can’t do anything at all without getting nailed with damage. Just stand there doing nothing or walk around a bit. Especially in an action-based combat system like this, standing around doing nothing is lame.

And heaven forbid you’re already doing some multi-hit attack when you get smacked with a confusion effect. Or even attacking at all, because for some reason the Escape key seems to take 2-3 seconds to actually respond to you mashing it and shouting “stop already”.

well, Engineer can do 2 stacks with static shot, 5 with prybar, and 5 with concussion bomb. That’s 12 stacks, but it takes a lot of skill to land them all, at least in pvp. I’m going to assume that to stack confusion to levels where it’s a real pain in the butthole, you need skill. That’s fine you know, there’s multiple ways to cure confusion and to avoid skills inflicting it, so maybe it would pay to trait up your combat movement? Just so you can run and wait it out.
That said, I do think mesmers need to suffer a penalty to confusion damage the more they stack it, since they have a very easy time doing so.